Soviet Security and the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 Michael Mccabe
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The Histories Volume 10 | Issue 2 Article 5 2019 Soviet Security and the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 Michael McCabe Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.lasalle.edu/the_histories Part of the History Commons Recommended Citation McCabe, Michael (2019) "Soviet Security and the Hungarian Revolution of 1956," The Histories: Vol. 10 : Iss. 2 , Article 5. Available at: https://digitalcommons.lasalle.edu/the_histories/vol10/iss2/5 This Paper is brought to you for free and open access by the Scholarship at La Salle University Digital Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in The iH stories by an authorized editor of La Salle University Digital Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The Histories, Volume 10, Number 2 27 III Soviet Security and the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 By Mike McCabe ‘12 “No event in recent history has been so much lied about, distorted, and besmirched as the Hungarian Revolution.”1 World War II marked a decisive end to a very sad chapter of history. Fascist leaders of two European countries were defeated as the Allied powers achieved victory in both the Atlantic and Pacific theatres. Unfortunately, the conclusion of global conflict did not come with international peace. Two global, rival superpowers emerged and rather than dig physical trenches as in wartime, the world became a battleground of ideology. Whether it was seen as democracy against authoritarianism or capitalism versus communism, nearly every country around the world was impacted by ideological warfare of the Cold War. As the Soviet Union began to consolidate its Warsaw pact states, all located in the Soviet Bloc of Eastern Europe, it grew ever fearful of the United States and her allies in NATO. The battlegrounds in Europe between these two opposing ideologies, as it happened to turn out, would all be located inside the former Axis powers. Berlin would be a consistent problem in U.S.—Soviet relations. Vienna, Austria was to be partitioned off between the victorious powers much like Berlin. Hungary would be a different case. The Hungarians were subject solely to a Soviet puppet government; there would be no other Western powers to oversee control of Budapest. Although Hungarians would never fully support any version of Soviet occupation, Hungary would still be incredibly important in the Soviet Union’s grand scheme for defense against outside threats. In the past two centuries Russia had been invaded by the formerly great European powers of France and Germany. For the Soviets after World War II, a precarious situation would have developed should Hungary have joined the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Understanding that, the Revolution of 1956 in Hungary became not merely a struggle over one nation’s freedom—but rather, a chance for the West to gain a significant upper hand in security operations in Europe; a chance that Moscow could not allow to come to fruition. The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was a substantial event in the Soviet Government’s consolidation of power at the beginning of the Cold War. For twelve days Hungarian rebels, 1 Quote from American Journalist Leslie B. Bain, as it appears in Paul Lendvai’s, One Day That Shook the Communist World: The 1956 Hungarian Uprising and Its Legacy, Princeton. Princeton University Press, 2008, 1. The Histories, Volume 10, Number 2 28 mostly students and writers, fought against the communist puppet government. The Soviet Union was forced to make a drastic decision: allow the revolution to take place and risk losing Hungary as a satellite state or order the Red Army into Budapest to crush the opposition. The free world looked on as the Kremlin decided on the latter. The events that unfolded in 1956 are very unique in terms of a revolution. First, it began as a peaceful protest of students and writers. Unlike the Russian Revolution of February, 1917, there was no food shortage, labor problems, or socialist discontent.2 It came from the intellectuals—many of whom were very well paid, but discontented with the Soviet Occupation and the Stalinist Hungarian leader, Erno Gero.3 Therefore, the story of the Hungarian Revolution cannot be told like the other revolutions of history. A second unique circumstance was that (for the most part) the revolt was contained inside the capital city of Budapest. If the ideals of the revolution spread into the countryside, the will to fight did not. For the Soviets to restore communistic order they had to defeat a group of lightly armed, militarily untrained intellectuals. Given the unique circumstances of Budapest, 1956, the question of whether it was really a revolution must be addressed—a revolution being distinct from a rebellion. The answer is yes.4 The Hungarians resorted to violence in 1956 because of their desire for a multi-party democracy. The freedom fighters would not have been satisfied merely with Gero’s abdication, they wanted an end to the Soviet occupation—a Hungary ruled by the Hungarians (Magyars). These young intellectuals were engaged in a full social revolution. At the very least, those fighters who were communists were rejecting the corruption of Marx caused by the Soviet imperial dogma. Revolutions rarely follow a blueprint.5 Doctrines may influence the politics of those involved; however, the operations are often sporadic.. The only driving factor behind the revolution was the Hungarian people’s thirst for freedom. The short-lived uprising changed everything—from how Hungarians saw themselves under communist rule to how the other Bloc countries perceived their political situation. Most importantly, for a short time it appeared that Hungary would be a free nation.6 The Soviet regime had to face the reality of the situation. They were caught off-guard by the seeming incompetence of the Hungarian leaders, coupled with the quick organization of the freedom fighters into militias. There would be no negotiating with the freedom fighters. They quickly dismantled all relics of Soviet Occupation—from statues of Lenin and Stalin to Communist Party headquarters and buildings. The situation would end in a free Hungary or a further repressed one, and as history will tell, the Soviet Union ordered the Red Army into Budapest to destroy any elements of resistance to the occupation. The Soviet Union acted in its own best security interests in crushing the Hungarian Revolution of 1956. This paper will attempt to show that the Soviet Union could not allow a free Hungary if it was to remain a threat against American hegemony. If the Bloc states began to crumble and revolt, the collapse of the Soviet Union would have surely been escalated—not only by the loss 2 For more details surrounding the Russian Revolution of 1917 see Orlando Figes. A People’s Tragedy: The Russian Revolution 1891-1924. New York: Penguin Books, 1998. ’ Noel Barber, Seven Days o f Freedom: The Hungarian Uprising, 1956, New York: Stein and Day, 1975, 31. 4 The uprising of 1956 was a revolution; however for the sake of prose the Hungarian people’s plight against the Soviet imperialists will be referred to as a rebellion, revolution, and uprising throughout the paper; however, the word choice does not change this stance. 5 Ibid, 30. 6 Victor Sebestyen, Twelve Days: The Story o f the 1956 Hungarian Revolution, New York: Random House, 2006, xxiv. The Histories, Volume 10, Number 2 29 of economic territory, but by the assured strengthening of the NATO alliance. This thesis will not attempt to apologize for the brutality of the Russian forces or any of the decisions made in the Kremlin. As the Hungarians suffered immensely against the Russians, the human element of the revolution should not be forgotten. If nothing else, the uprising in Hungary of 1956 represents one of the greatest tragedies of 20th Century history. A group of people unified by their hatred for civil, political, and social repression fought in a David versus Goliath battle for their freedom. This time, David lost. The Iron Curtain Descends By the time of the Revolution in 1956, Hungary was an established communist nation, having been under Soviet domination for almost a decade. A common historical misconception is that control of Hungary was given to Stalin in Yalta in 1945; however, there were several preexisting factors determined by the Allies that allowed for a Russian dominated Hungary following the conclusion of the war.7 Churchill, with Roosevelt’s begrudging acquiescence, agreed in 1943 to hold zones of influence with Stalin; however, the most important factor in determining the fate of post-war Hungary was the geographical positioning of the Allied powers.8 It would be the Soviet Red Army who would ‘liberate’ (certainly not a liberation if one were to ask a victim of the violence of 1956) Hungary from Nazi Germany mostly due to Hungary’s location in Eastern Europe, but make no mistake—the Allies had no intention of willingly subjecting Eastern Europe to another repressive regime so quickly after the defeat of another.9 One of the first viewpoints to emerge from the West regarding the Soviet Union’s domination of Eastern Europe in the post-World War II era was the bloc nations needed Russia to support them. These western intellectuals argued that without support from Moscow these fragile states would collapse without Soviet military and secret police forces.10 The truth was much more complicated than that sweeping, generalized statement (as it is with much of Soviet history). Initially it appears that Stalin acted both out of fear for the West and a desire to recreate the Russian Empire as the Soviet Bloc developed in the years after the war. As Stalin moved to consolidate power, there began to emerge a less publicized, but very important conception of the communist system.